This pattern conflicts with the argument that some political analysts have made, based on smaller surveys than Gallup’s. The new data doesn’t answer the larger question I posed in a recent column: Will the youngest voters in forthcoming elections, like those in 2016 and 2020, be as strongly Democratic as today’s youngest voters. But the data does suggest that such a trend is not already underway among the oldest teenagers.

For starters, the Gallup data indicates that today’s oldest teenagers do not identify themselves as any more conservative than people in their 20s. About 27 percent of 18- to 21-year-olds identify as liberal, compared with about 25 percent who call themselves conservative. Among 25- to 29-year-olds, the liberal lead is 28 percent to 27 percent.

In addition to ideology, Gallup also asks people about party identification. The picture here is a bit fuzzier.